Whats the problem? - AC charger / battery / jack

djt0607

Hi.

I have a dell xps M1530. About 2 months ago, I replaced the AC charger and battery. (i ordered them both from ebay - they are fully compatible)
Now, I am getting a 'the AC wattage cannot be determined' message at bootup. I have used my friends dell AC charger with my laptop (voltage exact same - 19.5V, slightly lower current) but still got the message...so i ruled out the charger being the problem. I put the old dell battery back into my laptop and STILL got the message, so i ruled out the battery as the problem. This has led me to believe the actually AC jack on them motherboard my be the problem. However, when I remove the battery from the laptop, I can still power the laptop up directly from the mains-i read on the internet that if this can be done, the problem is the battery - but i earlier ruled the battery out.

Can anyone Please Please shed some light on this matter for me?..i dont want to have to dismantle my laptop to replace the AC jack if I dont really need to.

Cheers

Dan.

ricman

i cant be the ac jack as the unit as its powering up, making sure the power rating on the psu is the same voltage ,ampage ,wattage ,as the laptop label,eg 19volt,4.6amp 90watts.
Batterys are usually damaged by leaving them in ,overcharging when powerunit is connected.Eg when battery is fully charged shutdown unit, remove power cable from the jack.
You could try reinstalling the windows drivers for the battery in device manager.
Can you borrow an identical battery from someone top try it out.
a psu with slightly larger ampage,with identical voltage is ok to use ,eg 5amp, in a 4.6amp unit.

m4rkiz

djt0607 wrote: »

Now, I am getting a 'the AC wattage cannot be determined' message at bootup.

all recent dell power adapters have three lines
GND, 19.5V and DATA

data line is sending information about MAX wattage to bios
if MAX wattage is lower than value that is preset in your system all you can do is power up laptop - battery won't be charged as bios can't determine if it can be done without damaging charger

simplest thing you can do is get another dell laptop and charger,
go to bios (press f1, f2 or del at bootup) , there is charger (or similar) tab there that shows what is connected as power source

verify that another laptop can recognize your new power adapter before you start do anything as it may be lower wattage or don't have this chip or wire connected at all

if you have adapter that is properly recognized by another laptop as same or higher wattage that you had originally it most likely means that your dc socket is damaged

m4rkiz

ricman wrote: »

Batterys are usually damaged by leaving them in ,overcharging when powerunit is connected.Eg when battery is fully charged shutdown unit, remove power cable from the jack.

not true for good 10 years now, each cell and whole battery is fitted with electronic protection circuits that won't allow overcharge or overdischarge no matter what you do

You could try reinstalling the windows drivers for the battery in device manager.

as adapter is not recognized by bios that won't help, charging circuits can be accessed from OS (ie. to prevent charging when battery is above 80% - this can reduce number of charge-discharge cycles and extend life of battery cells) but they are designed to run on their own